Over two weeks ago...

At the Velanora household’s throne room, Haven had been summoned before her father, head of the family, a summons she could not decline. It was the first time she’d stepped out of the training room in over a month.

She hadn’t eaten anything proper, and her body’s only consistent memory was ice and cold. Standing upright required more than it should have. None of that mattered. Her father had called, and there was no version of this in which she didn’t answer.

Karl faced his struggling daughter with the gaze of a man who had never once confused blood relation with sentiment. Haven was before him barely upright, the chilling atmosphere she carried preceding her like a warning.

It didn’t move him. If anything, it gave him more reason to be exactly the kind of grotesque he already was.

Haven went down on one knee and kept her eyes on the floor. She’d been pushing herself without rest, and somewhere underneath all of it had been a quiet hope that her father would notice, that he might offer something encouraging.

Karl never came to the training room himself or got close to it, but the servants reported. She’d been certain he knew what she’d been doing.

"I heard you’ve managed to maintain your states. Is that true?"

"Yes, Father."

"That’s great..."

Relief moved through her in a way she hadn’t expected. Her father had never applauded her, not once in her memory, and the absence of that had always been its own quiet weight.

This felt like the weight was finally shifting. She was getting stronger. The tireless training was the best thing she’d ever done, and now she had something close to proof.

"...this is an opportunity we cannot waste. Your marriage has already been arranged. With your strength, the Seam family will be eager to accept us."

Her heart skipped a beat, and she trembled, just slightly, but enough to notice. The cold she’d been living in for over a month hadn’t managed that. Her father had done it in a moment.

"You will marry Victor Seam, Haiden Seam’s son. This marriage will elevate the Velanora family. See that you do not disappoint me."

She gulped bile. The name Victor Seam meant nothing to her, but his father’s did. Haiden Seam was one of the rare God Killers to have been given the title of Sovereign, a distinction few ever reached.

He was more commonly known as something else entirely. The Apostle.

His strength stood on its own, an Inheritance built around controlling plants, which in the right hands was more than enough. But the Sovereign title came with everything strength alone couldn’t buy.

An estate twice the size of the Velanoras’. A salary that could feed the family across generations. Businesses already in place, already working, the Seams’ future secured before it had even fully arrived.

A marriage into the Seam family would solve things she hadn’t been able to solve alone: strength, access, better training environments, and guidance worth having.

Every practical argument pointed in the same direction. And yet something about it refused to settle. It didn’t sound right, and no amount of sense-making was changing that.

"And what of Scar Rover, Father? He has already made his proposal, has he not?"

Karl’s expression darkened.

"What did you say?"

Haven shivered.

"I believe the Rover family will be able to clear up the misunderstanding regarding Scar’s proposal, Father. We only need to grant them time."

Karl exhaled.

"Why would I permit such a thing? To marry into that house... and to their bastard of all people?"

Karl pressed his fingers to his forehead and massaged it slowly. The thought of Scar alone had apparently been enough to do that.

"The Rover family possesses no true power. What are they remembered for? Arthur was their sole protector, and he is no more. Their peculiar ’ritual of freedom’ is not something my family will be associated with.

"Even without Purple Vey interfering, that bastard’s proposal meant nothing. I would never have allowed you to marry into that house."

Haven had known this was coming. She’d been living with the thought longer than she wanted, carrying it through every training session, every sleepless hour, every moment she’d tried not to look directly at it.

There was always going to be a day when the choice between Scar and her father stopped being hypothetical.

She knew where her emotions were and where her convictions stood, and the problem was that they didn’t align. Scar made her feel human in a way nothing else managed, like she wasn’t alone in a world that had always felt godforsaken.

Her father gave her something different. Opportunities.

The conditions that had shaped her strength, the circumstances that had built whatever she was becoming.

One gave her warmth. The other gave her power. She needed both and could feel the ground shifting beneath the choice.

What she wanted, what she had always wanted, was to save the world. To make sure no one had to watch their parents or loved ones get hurt or killed the way she had.

That was what she lived and trained for. And she knew, with the same certainty she knew everything else about herself, that she couldn’t do it if her emotions kept getting in the way.

And yet, she just couldn’t let go.

Throughout the brutal training, whenever the question of who to side with crept in, she’d pushed it aside. She couldn’t do that anymore. A decision had to be made.

Her father wore the certainty of a man who had already made up his mind and was waiting for the formality of her compliance. If Haven said nothing, the marriage to Victor Seam would happen. Her silence was the only yes he needed.

If she said something, it would be the second time she had ever stood against her father. The questions that followed that thought were worse than the thought itself.

Would she be disowned? Would she lose whatever chance remained of his love? She didn’t have answers, and the uncertainty alone had her shivering.

All of it lived in her head. Karl Velanora did want Haven stronger, that part was real. But the reason had nothing to do with what she imagined.

Karl wasn’t raising a daughter who would save humanity. He was building a weapon. Something that would stand between him and the fate his wife had met. Haven’s strength was never for Haven. It had always been for him.

The Apostle was powerful, that was settled. Other strong figures existed, other Sovereigns in other territories, but within the human domain, Haiden and Arthur had been the last two standing at that rank.

Arthur was dead. The math was simple. Haiden Seam was now practically the strongest human being in the human domain, and that position hadn’t come with competition.

Passing on an opportunity like this wasn’t something Karl was capable of. The strongest human in the domain brought into his corner, and Haven continuing down the path toward perfection in the meantime. It was too clean an arrangement to refuse.

Haven couldn’t see how twisted her father was. She was too close to it, too deep in the belief that he was on her side. She’d already given everything and stood ready to give more, all of it built on the conviction that Karl was her greatest supporter.

And while she stayed in that fog, unable to think clearly, Karl was the one making her decisions. That was exactly where he wanted her.

"Victor Seam has chosen to visit you. I doubt his father will accompany him, but you must be prepared all the same. He is, after all, your future husband."

"...uhm... father."